• Friuli-Venezia Giulia

• Natura 2000 Network

The entire area, as an integral protection territory called Miramare Marine Protected Area, is surrounded by an external partial protection zone established in 1994 (prohibition of fishing, except from land). From 1973 to 1986, the surface has always been managed as a zone of integral protection, with prohibition of access except for few scuba diving activities. In 1979, the Miramare Marine Protected Area was listed in the UNESCO-MAB protection area “Man and the Biosphere”, including species of:
- Red mullet (Mullus barbatus): this species frequents sandy and muddy bottoms, at depths ranging from a few centimetres to a few hundred meters deep. In very shallow waters, there are usually adults in the reproductive period;
- Peacock’s tail (Padina pavonia), Halopteris scoparia, Dictyota dichotoma: brown algae of the infralittoral zone that are diffused mainly in the area of Bagno Ducale;
- Acetabularia acetabulum: green alga present at a depth of 2-3 meters both in the rocks and in the pebbles of Bagno Ducale and along the cliff of Castello;
- Hypnea musciformis: living during the late summer at a depth of 8-9 meters on the hard substrates interrupting the sandy bottom off Bagno Ducale;
- Zostera noltii (Nanozostera noltii): it creates some meadows with other marine phanerogams at a depth of 3-4 meters, currently located in the area of the former stables.
As it concerns marine molluscs, there are the fan mussel (Pinna nobilis) and the date mussel (Litophaga litophaga).